LEILA LAK
Pedro Ferraracio Charbel, a Brazilian with a slightly accented but almost perfect English met me in coffee shop on the first floor of the majestic Cine Odeon on the corner of Cinelandia. In this glorious art deco building, with Chopin playing gently in the background, we discussed the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in Brazil. As we sat the other side of the world from the Middle East Pedro’s knowledge and passion for the region made it seem very close.
The BDS movement started in 2005, when a call was made by Palestinian civil society for people to boycott specific companies they saw actively gaining for the occupation of their lands. Since then it has grown to be being a worldwide movement with three clear goals, ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands to 1967 boarders. The second goal is to recognize the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
Pedro claims that the attraction of BDS in Latin America is that is clearly about human rights and is not bogged down with the specifics of one or two states or other such things. BDS leaders round the world also stress it is a non-racist inclusive movement and this they believe is the crux of their success around the world. Although those who are anti-BDS argue that by its definition it is anti-Semitic and the very definition of Israel as an apartheid state is in itself anti-Semitic.
Pedro’s roots are Lebanese but his own involvement in the region came from his studies and a trip he made to the West Bank in 2011 as an international observer. Returning with a newly found energy to help the BDS movement, with which he was already actively involved. Today he is the BNC’s (BDS National Committee) Latin American co-ordinator. He is responsible in coordinating campaigns in Latin America and liaises between the social movements in the Occupied Territories and in this region.
“Brazilian civil society, and in general social movements and political parties on the left have always been connected to the Palestinian issue because we in Latin America understand pretty much what colonization means, what state of exception means, what abuses from the state, militarism, ethnic cleansing of our native ethnic population so we have a lot of ontological and historical links to the Palestinian struggle,” he says.
Despite the distance between Brazil and the Middle East geographically, Pedro believes that these links mean that social movements in Latin America relate to the question of Palestine. He does concede that given the distance and the lack of a big Palestinian Diaspora in the region it means that to the general public this issue feels a little distant.
“As Israeli or other companies linked to Israel are losing contracts in Europe and the US they are bringing their business to Latin America and especially to Brazil.” He claims this is due to the success to the BDS movement in Europe and the United States. Brazil is a key buyer of Israeli weapons, and according to the BDS movement and other activist movements it is the 5th largest buyer of Israeli weapons worldwide.
“So it is not that we are not connected to the Palestinian issue,” states Pedro, “we are directly financing the system of oppression and colonialism that keeps this going.”
Pedro uses the example of ISDS an Israeli company that trains the BOPE here in Rio de Janeiro. He says this is an important example of how the Brazilian government is using the technology that Israel develops from “the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the violation of their human rights to oppress ourselves and kill black and poor youths, so the connections between them and us are very strong.”
The first BDS victory in Latin America was in 2014 when the Buenos Aires cancelled a contract with the Israeli water company Mekorot with BDS pressure. BDS and other Human Rights organisations claimed that Mekorot was planning to export their discriminatory water policies developed in the West Bank to Argentina. Other successes in Latin America included the suspension of a research contract between Rio Grande do Sol with Elbit systems, who are the creators of drone systems used against the Palestinian territories.
Other successes but the most newsworthy was when Caetano Velosa and Gilberto Gil went to Israel. It became a public debate featured by major newspapers in Brazil..
When they were considering going Pedro and others working with BDS started the “Tropicalia nao combina com Apartheid” campaign. They felt strongly that two artists who were the voice of protest and social engagement should heed the picketlines drawn by the Palestinians in their strguggles. They wrote to them asking them to sit with them. Other big voices in favour of BDS also wrote to the artist including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Paulo Serge Pinheiro and Roger Walters, all asking them not to go.
“There was a big public pressure and a nice conversation going on,” says Pedro, “Unfortunately, they went anyway and they performed, which breaks the picket line that the Palestinians have established and they performed. It is as if they went to South Africa during apartheid and performed there.”
When Cartano returned he wrote an open letter critical of the Israeli state and said that he believes he will never return to Israel under the current status quo. This increased awareness to the BDS campaign within Brazil.
“No doubt that Caetona coming back and writing the letter has contributed to this pedagogic process that we all need to go through. We invite artists to go first and see it before deciding to perform.”
Pedro’s rhetoric is unapologetic. He refers to Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel and a Noble Peace Prize winner as a “war criminal,” and Tel Aviv as the capital of Apartheid.
Throughout the world people working closest to the BDS movement say they are targeting institutional links not individuals. Their targets are not only companies and a cultural boycott but an academic one too. This many critics say is hypocritical when Omar Barghouti the founder of the movement is studying for his PHD at Tel Aviv University.
“This type of argument sees BDS as some type of dogmatic movement and it is not,” says Pedro defending Barghouti’s decision to study there. “Palestinians living inside Israel they are buying Israeli products and going to Israeli universities and that is not a problem as BDS is not dogmatic it is not about boycotting everything it is about choosing targets and ending complicit institutions. This is what we on the outside can do. If you are living inside Israel and Palestine to a certain extent you don’t have many options on buying products or accessing services but if you are on the outside you cannot be complicit. You are able to not finance those violations,”
He says these critics and also the recent laws in the United Kingdom making the boycotting of Israeli goods illegal are attempts at delegitimizing the movement and a clear signs that they are having an impact. In turn Pedro says the movement will continue growing in this region like in others. But like all working on the BDS say they have set out goals and “BDS has an expiration date, it exists to not need to exist any more.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Leila Lak is a journalist, documentary filmmaker and Head of Reportage of REVISTA DIASPORA.